36 Chowringhee Lane

Violet Stoneham lives in Calcutta. She is an Anglo-Indian schoolteacher. She teaches English literature at a girls’ school and keeps returning to Shakespeare. Her home is a single room at 36 Chowringhee Lane. Her brother Eddie is in a nursing home and is losing himself. Her niece Rosemary marries and moves far away. Her world narrows until only her cat is left. One Christmas she runs into Nandita, a former student, with her boyfriend Samaresh. Violet opens her room to them during the day. Samaresh writes his novel there while she is at school. The couple marry and set up a home of their own. The next Christmas Violet arrives at their door with a cake, finds a party inside and turns back, reciting King Lear aloud on the way home. Jennifer Kendal plays Violet in the hundred and twenty two minute film, an Indian production Aparna Sen finished in 1981.